Chapter Eighteen
T18.4 The Little Willingness

The holy instant is the result of your determination to be holy. It is
the ANSWER. The desire and the willingness to let it come precedes its
coming. You prepare your minds for it only to the extent of
recognizing that you want it above all else. It is not necessary that
you do more; indeed, it is necessary that you realize that you CANNOT do
more. Do not attempt to give the Holy Spirit what He does not ask, or
you will add the ego unto Him, and confuse the two. He asks but little.
It is HE Who adds the greatness and the might. He joins with you to make
the holy instant far greater than you can understand. It is your
realization that you need do so little that enables Him to give so much.

Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust
implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only
on this, and be not disturbed that shadows surround it. That is why you
came. If you could come without them, you would not NEED the holy
instant. Come to it not in arrogance, assuming that you must achieve the
state its coming brings with it. The miracle of the holy instant lies in
your willingness to let it be what it is. And in your willingness for
this lies also your acceptance of yourself as YOU were meant to be.

Humility will never ask that you remain content with littleness. But it
DOES require that you be NOT content with less than greatness which
comes not of you. Your difficulty with the holy instant arises from your
fixed conviction that you are not worthy of it. And what is this but the
determination to be as you would MAKE yourself? God did not create His
dwelling-place unworthy of Him. And if you believe He cannot enter where
He wills to be, you must be INTERFERING with His Will. You do not need
the strength of willingness to come from YOU, but only from HIS Will.

The holy instant does not come from your little willingness alone. It is
always the result of your small willingness combined with the unlimited
power of God’s Will. You have been wrong in thinking that it is needful
to PREPARE yourself for Him. It is impossible to make arrogant
preparations for holiness, and NOT believe that it is up to you to
establish the conditions for peace. GOD has established them. They do
not wait upon your willingness for what they are. Your willingness is
needed only to make it possible to TEACH you what they are. If you
maintain you are unworthy of learning this, you are interfering with the
lesson by believing that you make the LEARNER different. You did not
make the learner, nor CAN you
make him different. Would you first make a miracle yourself, and then
expect one to be made FOR you?

YOU merely ask the question. The answer is GIVEN. Seek not to answer it,
but merely RECEIVE the answer as it is given. In preparing for the holy
instant, do not attempt to make yourself holy to be ready to receive
it. That is but to confuse your role with God’s. Atonement cannot come to
those who think that THEY must first atone, but only to those who offer
it nothing more than simple willingness to make way for it. Purification
is of God alone, and therefore for you. Rather than seek to prepare
yourself for Him, try to think thus:

“I who am host to God AM worthy of Him.

He Who established His dwelling-place in me created it as He would
have it be.

It is not needful that I make it ready for Him,

But only that I do not interfere with His plan to restore to me my
own awareness of my readiness, which is eternal.

I need add nothing to His plan.

But to receive it, I must be willing not to substitute my own in
place of it.”

And that is all. Add more, and you will merely TAKE AWAY the little that
is asked. Remember you made guilt, and that your plan for the escape
from guilt has been to bring Atonement TO it, and make salvation
fearful. And it is only fear that you will add, if you prepare YOURSELF
for love. The preparation for the holy instant belongs to Him Who gives
it. Release yourselves to Him Whose function is release. Do not assume
His function for Him. Give Him but what He asks, that you may learn how
little is your part, and how great is His.

It is this that makes the holy instant so easy and so natural. You make
it difficult, because you insist there must be more that you need do.
And it is very hard for you to realize that it is not personally
insulting that your contribution and the Holy Spirit’s are so extremely
disproportionate. You are still convinced YOUR understanding is a
powerful contribution to the truth, and makes it what it is. Yet we have
emphasized that you need understand nothing. Salvation is easy just
BECAUSE it asks nothing that you
cannot give RIGHT NOW.

Forget not that it has been your decision to make everything that IS
natural and easy for you impossible. What you believe to be impossible
will BE, if God so wills it, but you will remain quite unaware of it. If
you believe the holy instant is difficult for you, it is because you
have become the arbiter of what is possible, and remain unwilling to
give place to One Who KNOWS. The whole belief in orders of difficulty in
miracles is centered on this. Everything God wills is not only possible,
but has already HAPPENED. And that is why the past has gone. It NEVER
happened in reality. Only in your minds, which thought it did, is its
undoing needful.

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